


Where the Good Are Stolen

by the_musical_alchemist



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, ノラガミ | Noragami
Genre: Attack on Titan AU, Multi, SNK AU, yukine and suzuha as jean and marco
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9011143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_musical_alchemist/pseuds/the_musical_alchemist
Summary: When Yukine reaches the end of the street, his veins run cold. Suddenly, he knows exactly what Yato meant. Right now, he’d give anything, anything, for that body to be anybody’s but Suzuha’s, the grief of strangers be damned. Attack on Titan AU!





	

Grief clings to the air long after the streets are ravaged from the attack. Yukine drags his feet as he walks along the rubble, his chest tight with foreboding. His gaze runs over each body and he’s so selfishly thankful for every one he can’t recognize.

Regrouping with his squad was all at once an overwhelming relief and crippling terror. Hiyori had crashed into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder and whispering his name again and again, as if doing so anchored him to her. At that moment, he was overcome with love for her, gratitude that they were together again, and a hollowness that reminded him how wrong all of this was.

He’d pulled away from her, swallowing the knot that formed in his throat, and glanced over at Yato. His eyes were downcast and he retained a white-knuckled grip on the hilt of his blade like he was prepared for combat at any moment.

“Where are the others?” Yukine had asked, cursing himself for the way his voice broke. He looked around. “Where is Suzuha?”

Yato closed his eyes, his grip tightening. Hiyori took Yukine by the hand and said, “We still haven’t found him, but–” She grabbed his other hand when his chest hitched. “Yukine,” she said, trapping his eyes in her steady ones. “We’ll look for him. Yato and I will come with you. We–”

“No,” said Yukine, stepping back and drawing his hands back. He shook his head, terrorized by the thought of the three of them walking through that hell together. Of hearing what they’ll say if they don’t find him.

Of seeing their faces if they do.

“I won’t go far,” Yukine promised. He clenched his shaking fists by his sides. “Just stay here. Stay together. I’ll be back.”

He turned away before either of them could see the tears he blinked away. The last thing he heard before he disappeared was Yato’s voice.

“I hate how glad I am that it wasn’t him,” he’d said.

When Yukine reaches the end of the street, his veins run cold. Suddenly, he knows exactly what Yato meant. Right now, he’d give anything, anything, for that body to be anybody’s but Suzuha’s, the grief of strangers be damned.

He brings a hand to his thundering heart, blackness tugging the edges of his vision as the air is stolen from his lungs.

_No. Not this. Not now. Not him._

“Suzuha,” he whispers, lowering to his knees. Shards of glass from a nearby home’s broken window are scattered on the ground. There Suzuha’s mangled, almost unrecognizable, body lay unsettlingly still, one glassy eye fixed blankly ahead.

Yukine’s hands fly to his mouth as he’s overtaken by nausea. He chokes on bile, doubling over his knees, thinking, _This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening._

He shudders, a sob pushing against his chest, and before he knows it, he’s pressing his arms to the floor, gasping for breath, desperate to wake up a day earlier, before the attack, when Suzuha was still safe.

Yukine catches a glimpse of Suzuha’s bloodied hand against the sidewalk and it brings him back to their first day in training, when he’d picked a blossom off the ground and told Yukine about his garden back home and how bringing life into the world was his way of giving it color and sharing his joy.

“That’s why I joined the military,” he told him with a smile. “I want to save people.”

Yukine lets loose a guttural sound, livid with the world for taking something so kind. It would never see Suzuha’s flowers again.

Someone’s arms circle him from behind. Yukine’s first instinct is to thrash, but he quickly stops himself when he recognizes Hiyori’s soft voice in his ear.

“I’m sorry,” she says shakily. Her arms tighten around him. Hot tears soak through Yukine’s hair. “Yukine, I’m sorry.”

Yato’s scuffed boots step into his line of sight. He bends down, setting a hand on Yukine’s shoulder.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says gruffly, but Yato isn’t a fool. The words aren’t necessarily empty, but they are ultimately meaningless. None of this is okay. He knows it. So he amends and says, “I’m not letting anything touch you. I promise that.”

“I don’t care,” Yukine chokes out, gripping Hiyori’s wrists where they press against his chest. “What are we doing? What’s the point of all this?”

“We’re fighting for humanity,” Hiyori says weakly.

“Fuck humanity!” Yukine hiccups, furiously shaking his head. “It’s hopeless.”

Yato sighs but says nothing. Yukine knows it isn’t contemptuous, but still, his sense of calm is unsettling. He wonders what Yato has experienced, what he’s _done_ , to see the world the way he does. To be able to look at Suzuha and the bodies of all of their comrades without falling apart. He’d be confused or even angry if there was room for anything but grief inside of his heart right now.

Hiyori holds Yukine for several more minutes. Yato sits with them, wringing his blood-caked hands, frowning deeply. At last, Yukine finds the will to move. The three of them rise to their feet, Hiyori steadying Yukine by his shoulders.

“I’m…” Yukine swallows, closing his eyes. “I’m glad you’re okay, Hiyori…Yato.”

He looks over at Suzuha, but his face has been covered. Yukine never even noticed that Yato had draped the remains of Suzuha’s jacket over him.

“Let’s go,” Hiyori says, squeezing Yukine’s shoulder. “Let’s go back to the meeting spot and see if anyone else made it back.”

Yukine nods numbly. “Okay.” He steps away from Hiyori and stops before his friend. The world is cruel with insatiable greed. It takes from the good, from the evil, from the rich and from the destitute. Maybe all of this is pointless. Maybe they’re only alive to die.

But Suzuha deserved more than this. Still, he deserves more than this.

Yukine brings a fist to his heart in salute, for the bravest soldier he knows. For someone who was willing to lay down his life, not for the inexorable world but for the people in it.

“Goodbye, Suzuha.”


End file.
